Welcome to my author page.
I am a writer of Comedy/Women’s Fiction and short stories, and I have been writing for as long as I remember.
By the age of two I was waking my mother in the night to ask her to write down what I wanted to say since I had not yet learned to write. At primary school the headmaster gifted me a little book to write in, which he called Julia’s Gems.
Writing has always been a part of my life and I can’t imagine life without its enriching powers and qualities. I have always wanted to be a writer and, apart from a brief few years in my early twenties despairingly trying to break into the music industry as a singer/songwriter, I have always pursued my dream of being a writer.
I am currently working on a novel, The Adventures of Jenny Bean, Aged 49 and an Awful Lot. The novel and its sequels were inspired by the Alan Bennett Talking Heads television series, and Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole diaries.
The sequel novella, Jenny Bean, Calamity Queen, was shortlisted for the CWIP (Comedy Women in Print) Prize and will be published in the anthology, The Book of Witty Women (Farrago Press), in April 2024.
Many of my short stories have been published in anthologies. You can read about my short story writing here, where you can purchase a copy of the anthologies.
After graduating from my MA in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick in 1999, I published a work of non-fiction, The Resurrection of Oscar Wilde, A Cultural Afterlife, (Lutterworth Press, 2007) you can read about this and the lavish Victorian-style book launch at the Cadogan Hotel here.
I am a long-term member of Leicester Writer’s Club and all the works cited and linked here - apart from the Oscar Wilde book - were developed with the invaluable encouragement and feedback of LWC members at our superb manuscript-reading evenings. I would recommend anyone wishing to perfect their writing craft to join a writer’s club.
For anyone interested in joining LWC and wanting to know more, the link to their website is https://leicesterwritersclub.com/.